The Tree of Knowledge
by LuciusBelyakov
Summary: "They have the ability to transform themselves into beautiful women or cobras." - The Circle of the Dragon: Defining a "Nagini"
1. The Magic Cup

Disclaimer: Any character who shows up in here was J.K Rowling's first. Bet ya had no idea, huh?

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><p><strong>The Tree of Knowledge<strong>

"And the serpent saith unto the woman, 'Dying, ye do not die," –Genesis 3:4

**I**

I have forgotten my grace. No more am I Nagini. To be Nagini I am not a human woman and I am not the earthly snake, rather I take their forms for as long as I need them. I may be separate creatures or bear parts of both the man and the beast in the same moment if I would like it. I cannot turn into Nagini the woman anymore, or anything that belongs to _her_. My womanly parts are gone; all there is left to me is the snake.

Before I could be just like a snake, it is different now. Before I was hidden away in the snake, the bee inside flowers. Now we are the same. I had wits and memories before. Today I do everything like a dumb beast! If I see a bird then I must have it, I see that it dies and I eat it. Sometimes I go to where snake eggs look vulnerable and uncovered, and I lie down on them and hope that they are warm enough.

I remember when he came to see me; I remember that! The rat with the nine fingers. He was the bravest of all the ones that served him, he visited a woman who could become a snake after all, and he came to me wearing his rodent form too. I tried to eat him up when he walked into the cave, a place where gold flowed in its waters, a house I had dressed up myself with my things and my sigil.

I pretended there was nobody home, it brought me joy to watch him never suspect something was amiss. I was not sad to live as a lady, but I would always enjoy a hunt if made the hunter. How could I not eat when food good as gave its consent for me to take a bite?

When I got tired of the game I took him with one move. As I hung him over my mouth by his tail he howled something like, "I am the messenger of the dark lord!"

My chuckle set him free, I was not able to hold onto him with my finger as tightly when I laughed, and I let one of the hands that held him cover my laughing mouth. His voice (the funny part) in that shape his voice was high, and it was sweet. It went something like a human child. I would have stroked his fur if he had not run away from me on his little feet. I would not have devoured him yet.

I let a part of me go by mistake, my foot turned to a rattlesnake's tail. Then my toe rings fell to the rocks and my anklet had split apart. Opals flew in every direction; they were made for a woman's foot, not a serpent's. He destroyed my laughter.

Jewels were to be loved, they are the key to a Nagini's life. They are one with the soul.

I went about my home trying to pick up the stones and see that they were well. I pressed them to my heart and rocked them. This naked vulnerability I showed made him come out again. Both animals and humans will seize the opportunity to confront a weakened foe.

He stayed at a good point for a nice start of running distance, then clothes began to show on his body with the help of some magic. The toy had a miniature hat and a grey suit of clothing. He lifted his hat for a moment and sat it back down on top of his rat head. He stood on his hind legs and spoke in a deeper man's voice, his whiskers twitching. He said he was going to save the one I was in love for, though of course said not 'love" to me. He said some more, but all I could hear were the words for Tom. When he said "the dark lord" just before, I did not know who he meant. He _is _called the Dark Lord, a kindness bestowed on him for his many charities. "Voldemort" was hard enough to remember as it was, I only knew Tom.

He said that he was sent to me by him. He heard his voice faraway in another land. I could see the land as he said it, though I did not know its name…. there were clouds coming …and rain.

He told me with many cracks in his voice that were not easy on my ears, that by our work together there were _ways_, ways to save. I listened to him like a child hearing a story with the most exquisite magic in it. I had forgotten how I had searched in every land that I knew of, that I had gone across oceans to be sure that he was nowhere. I didn't think of the stories I heard from travelers that his body was beyond cold, and beyond ashes and beyond dust, or of all the years I looked. I accepted his truth and waited for more truths.

He grew quiet after awhile until I screamed at him, "Tell me! You must tell!"

Even if I was screaming there was a smile on my face.

The rat grew large and then he was prepared to tell me all of it. I was going to receive him warmly and with welcomes, at first I was so excited, but then felt like a small hatchling while I was watching him grow up. He was a big tasty rat, with giant furry feet that sharp nails jutted out of, and a long rosy tail much bigger than my whole body sometimes grew. I suddenly felt afraid of another predator.

It was a long time before he found his human shape. He took off his muddied coat and hat, then made himself at home, finding one of my chairs from the treasure horde I relieved some travelers of. He asked for "hospitality." I asked him what that word meant. When I knew what it had to do with I offered him my knife to hunt with to feed his hungry belly, then pointed to the rain outside, he had forgotten it; he would not be thirsty if he but opened his mouth. He looked to me as if I had disappointed him, he must have only been sad for Tom if he was his master.

I was a little saddened that he did not want my knife for anything at all. I took it from a prince in the desert, but that was a long time ago. I liked that the handle fit around the palm, it was easier for me to hold. A knife could be useful, but I did not know the real art of the fight. The rubies that shone out of the handle though were the real joy. He probably only ate cheese and could not appreciate knowing the cow it came from.

Last I remember he was dumping water from inside of his boots onto my grounds, and he said to me, "Its been almost thirteen years since he disappeared. But thirteen's a lucky number, right?" He smiled at me with many teeth, and looked even more the part of his animal.

He told me at some point that we would need money for the journey and asked me to part with some of my belongings. I gave him a bucket of my emeralds, hoping that would be the first step we took to help Tom.

I never really thought something as horrible as Tom's dying had happened, not really. I was scared, not being able to see him. But I lived everyday without the bitterness of missing something. I was only panicked at the right time, because I could not find where I had places what was important.

The next night we went to an antique city in the southern west of the country, the place where he was trapped. It was here his flesh died, I thought that made sense that this was where it would grow again.

I have heard that this house is decorated with messages and art for its dead, ornaments, cards and similar things. I did not see those things the day I went, I was too filled with worry for the man I came for. The house was invisible to me really. As is any loveliness of the water when you pull back out what will drown from its abyss.

I climbed what was left of stairs to the highest floor left. I was unafraid of being harmed in the house that hung by just a string. I stood in the middle of the bedroom. I knew it was the room where all the pain and sorrow had happened with its violent look, which is why I went.

I removed my scarves and dropped feathers, and walked through the place, looking for the spot where he was hurt. I heard the loyal rat behind me, his small feet making the old boards squeak, but I did not turn around. I only looked at the walls, and then the floor, so riddled with hole after hole.

I saw scratches up and down the side of one wall and I went to them, putting out my tongue to get a better smell. Were they made by an animal or a man? How recent was the mark?

Then I saw a woman falling down with a baby in one arm, the other arm grasping the wall, still trying to live. She breathed so heavy but inhaled nothing. Her eyes saw nothing, they'd been closed and stared at their own sockets.

I grew cold and did not go further. Something struck the floor, I can hear its metal sound now in memory, yet I did not then, then I saw nothing but the vision.

I knew Tom was strong, so strong I did not feel afraid for him though it was a time of war… most times at least I did not. I knew he started the war too, he demanded revolution. People die in war, so if he is to make a kill why is he a different man? All it made him was a man. Men decide if the death is well-done or if it is vile, that is not customary thinking among mine.

The reasons for the war were nothing but words, difficult ones. Why should I be afraid for the statue of secrecy and if someone does not uphold it? It did nothing for me. What of it if he wanted Knights of Walpurgis? Perhaps I too should have such knights.

All I'd ever been fed from his hand was the milk of kindness, what showed him to be unwise?

I knew he died in a fight too, I knew he went to secure power. I didn't know who they were, why should I not wish well of him?

To see it is all that made the difference. To watch is stronger than knowing. To know is just another word, you might argue with a word, it's rare that one does not. But can you argue with a picture so easily?

I stopped and turned my head because of someone I could not touch or hear, for a face I'd see one time only, who had done nothing for me, and had a life I wasn't interested in, and a name I could not tell you.

Something cold touched me in that darkness, colder than I already felt. The rat assistant was slinking around me, he stood not very much higher than my skirts, not that others did, I was tall back then. He looked like a little boy by comparison.

I saw him pressing a golden cup against me, a cup with a whimsical animal engraved on it. It was this chalice that had fallen down from inside of my gown and made noise the moment just ago. I was its carrier. Tom had entrusted it to me long before his female knight, the eater of death.

I remember that well too. When Tom gave it for me to keep he did not look at me, like it was painful. His back was even turned. Eye contact is important. Why was he doing this?

He slid it to me with the white, long fingers. I loved him for his hands. I wanted human hands you know... I had hands if I wanted, but they never worked in the same way in exact. It was hard for me to write a note to put in the owl for Tom or to play some music, they were fakes.

Then Tom's eyes bored into me as they should, and he pulled my hands apart, holding them with soft paternal ways as he often did. "This cup is everything," he said. He said my name in the end too, but I no longer remember what that name is. Nagini is just a word, meaning "snake of royalty." It gets used by men as if to say "princess" and "prince." I was called something else in my mother tongue.

I examined the object, and found it plain, it had no good way of its design. I did not care enough to ask what it did. He laughed when I went about wrinkling my nose.

I kept his cup on my person during his life, but after the disaster of his assassination plot against the family I put it where I did not see it. Deep inside I must have thought the had cup lied. I did not know enough about what it was for me to think such things, but I put it away in any case. I was not so human to take it out and look at it when I was sad and missing him. It stayed out of the way and gathered dust until Peter the rat showed up at my doors. Yet I was enough human to keep it when I might have bartered with it to a more advantageous purpose. But let us come back to the moment in the house…

I saw the cup anew in the dark, turning blue in the shadow. I did not retrieve it, I no longer knew if I wanted him to live. When I stood not answering, Rat became panicked. "Do you see where he died?" he urged me. He snatched the cup away and began wandering about the room.

I must have glided away somehow. I thought I stood still but I was flying, an inch or three off the ground. I hovered there, the room was bright and alive, and the servant was gone. In the light everything that had been broken or was too old looked healed now. Mirrors lost their cracks, there were lights that had not gone out, flowers inside of a vase that I knew a moment ago to have been empty, spreads across the bed had all of their colors instead of having faded, a meal was fresh and hot with steam, and Tom was alive…

He was on his back in the corner of the room. His chest went up and down so, and his breath was guttural. His arms and legs looked heavy, they would not move. He whispered.

I said cautiously, "Yes! I am here…" with legilimency, tilting my head. I was too overcome and too shocked to move toward him. I dug the painful nails of my fake hands into their palms, and the human part of me came, the teardrops. I said simply Tom aloud, and I was surprised to hear my own voice cracking.

I was still ever cautious however. I had six senses and only one of them could detect him, and the eyes are always the weakest of a snake's senses. I used all of them several times. I could not feel the heat on my lips that a living thing gives, his heat that I knew so well.

I saw him murmur, but could not feel a sound in my body.

I held my head up as high as it could go in my woman's form, my tongue came out, I made my jaw drop low. I stayed for so long to make sure I had the scent, but when I tasted the particles all I found was the dust of the old house and its spider webs. I pressed my tongue to my mouth's roof again to try to get a different answer, but it was worse the second time. I could get no shape, I had no sense of a man's size.

What I saw was not there in the room with me. It was no more than a dream.

Then a white shadow, a shadow like wings came down and entered the flesh of his body, going on through him. He would fall back that way if he were killed by an arrow, that is how it pushed him down. I could not help but raise my hands to the light, wanting to protect. I would protect any part of him I could, even just a vision of him.

A wound of light poured from his chest as he sank to the ground.

His eyes were cool and empty now. His face was pressed against the floorboards. His mouth had gone stiff yet it was open.

I was sure he was dead, but still he lifted his head, his neck was broken. He had told me before that he refused to die.

Of course I would have killed what was attacking him if I was there to do it, I would haven taken him away and gotten him healthy once again, but if I could not do these things I also would kill him to stop him from suffering so.

He coughed as his neck arced, revealing his throat. A seed of light was wrenched from it and he collapsed back to the floor, covering himself with his arms.

Death came at last. Something happened to his face, as if it were being ripped off at the skin. The house was plunged into darkness. No more light except for the white of his face as it changed in the dark, pulling in two directions at once. Then he cried out.

After that he could speak no more, but gnash his teeth and finally leave his mouth open, screaming without any voice, while the light fled his face like a bird. He grew faint and without features, the way his knights looked when they dressed in the masks.

What happened to you? A thing worse than death. You live but like this?

The image broke.

I whispered with both eyes red, "Give me the cup."

The rat was at my side, the cup was in my lap and I was on my knees. I sat the cup in front of me. I had no room for the pity of another.

The cup began to levitate. The window shutters struck the sides of the house many times. The lightning that fell outside gave us an eternal white to see by, never once ceasing. I felt water anointing me, coming in through the endless cracks in the house.

The cup rose high, filling with rain. Rat braced his hand upon my shoulder, I do not think he even knew he did this.

There was a windstorm inside of the house, it did not come in from outside though, I knew this came from the cup instead. The wind was chilly.

The dust in the room rose, removing itself from all objects it covered. The particles filled the room and disguised much of it, only could I see the cup, light was puncturing from it.

Rat readied his wand, he did not trust whatever was waiting in the dark. I grabbed his hand like a fool, and meant to stop him from defending us. I suppose I thought…

For a moment the room turned quiet.

Then the cup began to sing! Yes, sing. Music like the sound of mermaids came out of the cup. The room began to stir, the song seemed to become part of the walls.

I stopped what I was doing.

Then the storm started like before and drowned out this sound.

The cup was even higher in the air now, above the dust. It shook violently, left and right and then it fell to the floor.

The storm died. The only sound in the room was what the cup did as it rolled across the wood. Then there was the sound of winds and a rustle of trees, the sound of leaves as they fell across the house, and the sight of the shadows they cast.

I had the wildness of heart to be the first to walk over to that cup. The cup had rolled near a window, just underneath it. As I walked toward it I could see a trail of blood by the moon's light. It glinted before me, it was so beautiful.

The blood was issuing from the cup as if it were its drink, its wine. But it never emptied, the cup, it went on spilling itself.

I knelt beside it and sat it up. As soon as it sat upright the blood stopped, and the cup was filled. I leaned over the cup, the salt smell filling my nostrils and I thought I heard more music, low strings this time instead of a voice.

I gestured for the rat to come. He knew what I wanted, as he ran toward me he opened the box we'd brought with us… a box more important than any horcrux.

_to be continued..._

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><p><strong>Author talks:<strong> Hi guys, its Lucius! I saw that I had some reviews and read them, and for the first few moments I was knocked speechless! I am completely touched to hear that I've made people so happy, that you really liked what I wrote, and took so much time with me. I never dreamed of hearing anything like this. I want to thank each of you so much. Z.R FlumeCloud (Zara) RegulusN (Glenda) and Whisked (Elly) you guys are sweet, not to mention made really well thought-out comments. I'll be checking out all of your writing too.

And don't worry, I've already actually got a little of the next chapter... like what's in that box. I should deliver in a week or two. I try to hurry back if someone's waiting on me, I care about my readers. But since I do care, I try hard to give them something worth their time... so I'm sometimes slower than I'd like to be! You guys have inspired me so much, thank you again!


	2. Legends of the Naga

**THE AUTHOR TALKS:** Hello everyone. This is not a new chapter, sorry! I hope that those of you who have subscribed to the story and see that it is updated aren't too disappointed. If you are then I still have pretty good news, chapter 2 is almost finished. Look for it in just a few more days. In the meantime while you guys are so patiently waiting I thought you might be interested in hearing more about what a Nagini is, here are some of the legends that I kept in mind while writing this story. For my story I see this kinda like the Tale of the Three Brothers sequence in the Deathly Hallows pt 1.

_**BIG FAT DISCLAIMER:**_ This is not part of my original story, the records and tales can be found in the sources listed.

I took the quote I use in the synopsis from a larger description at _The Circle of the Dragon_. Look for it under _Dragons of History_, listed as _Nagas of India_.

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><p><strong>Appearance:<strong> "Nagas and Naginis, while the same species, look different. Naginis, female Nagas, are usually very beautiful. They are human to their waist and have the body and tail of a cobra from the waist down. Nonetheless, they have lovely faces and beautiful eyes, and they have the ability to transform themselves into beautiful women or cobras. It is common to hear of a mortal man being lured into the Naga domain by a Nagini.

Nagas, the Nagini's male counterpart, are not so attractive. They, too, are human from the waist up and cobra from the waist down, but they have slate-colored skin. In addition, they have snake-like eyes, and they are the reason why people have nightmares about snakes.

Regardless of sex, the Nagas and Naginis covet things, especially jewelry. In some instances, they were said to steal jewelry to decorate themselves. Some are also reported to have multiple heads.**"**

**Lifestyle: "**Nagas and Nagini are said to be a tribe of snake deities in the mythology of India, and they were the descendants of Kadru and Kasyapa. Some live in underwater palaces in Bhagavati, their city, while others live in Nagablea, which was under the Earth.

For the most part, it is hard to say what the Naga's relationship with humans was. In some cases, they were quite evil and vicious. In others, they were helpful and benevolant. Therefore, it false to say that Nagas were feared. As a matter of fact, in Indian mythology, there are no tales of the Naga being slain by heros. However, that's not to say that Nagas were peaceful. They had one avowed enemy, the Garuda Bird.

Since Nagas lived underground, they would also travel underground, sometimes coming to the surface for air. With their travels, they created the great underground caverns and tunnels of South-East Asia.

Like the Eastern dragons, the Nagas were also said to have divine pearls.**"**

**Naga Monarchs: "**The Nagas had rulers, one of the major ones being Ananta-Shesha. Another Naga king, Muchalinda, protected Buddha during a storm by transforming himself into a cobra and wrapping himself around Buddha. In Hindu mythology, Karkotaka was the king of the Nagas who could control the weather, especially the rain fall.

In the epic _Mahabharata_, the Naga king Takshaka was said to aid in revenge. A hermit was insulted by Parikshit, a Raja; the monk's son sought out the Naga king and begged him to avenge the offense made to his father. The Raja was not afraid, however, as his fortress was in the middle of a lake, where he thought the Naga king could not reach him.

Monks attended the fortress, bringing gifts of fruit for the Raja. When the very last fruit was opened, an insect rose from it. It was a strange insect, as it had red eyes. It proceeded to transform into the Naga king, who then strangled the Raja in his coils."

**The Story of the Naga Princess:**

"There is a story told about the Naga Princess and her three fabulous eggs. The Naga Princess walked, in the form of a beautiful maiden, along the shores of her home. The Sun Prince looked down on her one day and saw how beautiful she was. He immediately descended down to her so that he could speak to her. With this, love grew between them, and later they decided to marry.

The couple was quite content, but before long the Sun Prince had to return to his duties and help his father, the sun, light the world. He departed, telling his wife that he would look down and watch her every day. He also told her to send him a white crow if she ever needed him. Although the Naga Princess was saddened by his leave, she would look up at his father, the sun, and think of her handsome Sun Prince. She was sad and lonely, until she laid three fabulous, ruby-colored eggs. They were even more beautiful because of their color, which was much like her favorite jewel.

Near the eggs' hatching day, the Naga Princess saw a white crow and asked him to take a message to the Sun Prince. She told the crow to go to the prince, nonstop, and tell him that his children were ready to hatch. With that, the crow flew away.

The white crow then flew to the Sun Prince and gave him the message. The prince was quite busy, so he fetched the most beautiful ruby he could find and placed it in a pouch. He gave it to the crow and told the crow that he could not go down to see his wife, but he wanted the crow to tell her that he gave her a gift to show her how much he loved her. Again, the crow was ordered to fly nonstop, so he flew away.

As the crow approached the home of the Naga Princess, however, he spied a group of merchants feeding their leftovers to the birds. He was quite hungry, after all, so he landed and hid his bundle under a bush so that he could join the other birds in their feast. While he was eating, the pouch caught a merchant's eye, so he opened it and found the ruby within. He took the ruby and put some dried cow dung inside the pouch instead. The white crow, having not noticed the exchange, later picked up the bundle and continued on his mission.

The Naga Princess was delighted when the white crow returned but dismayed over the fact that her husband had not. After hearing the crow's message, the thought of getting a present excited her, so she quickly opened the pouch to see what the Sun Prince had given her as a sign of his love for her. When she saw the cow dung, she demanded to know if the crow had stopped. The crow said he had not, and he flew away.

The Naga Princess was both hurt and enraged. She stared at the three eggs with hatred, but she did not kill them, they were her children. Still, the stare she gave them engraved her rage upon them. She swore to never walk upon the earth again, and she descended back into her father's palace in the form of a snake.

The Sun Prince did not see any of this, for he did not keep his promise about watching the Naga Princess each day. However, one day he did look down, and he could not find her. He looked everywhere, and finally he saw a merchant holding the ruby that was meant for his wife. He knew what had happened: the crow had not kept his promise. Enraged, he looked for the white crow, and when he found him, he quickly zapped the bird, turning the white feathers black. Each time he saw a white crow from then on, he turned it black in the same way. This is why there are no more white crows in Burma.

The three eggs were left by their mother on the earth. During a flood, they were washed down a large river. The first egg was thrown up against a rock, and rubies flew out of it. That is why, even now, rubies can be found outside of the town of Mogok. The other two eggs flowed further down, being passed into the Irrawaddy River. From the second egg, the most fierce tigers in all of Burma sprang up, and from the last the most fierce crocodiles in all of Burma were born.**"**

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><p><em>The Great Encylopedia of Fairies: Secrets Revealed by Pierre Dubois<em> was also a real help.

This is what he had to say about them,

Their size: _That_ _of a cobra or a well-proportioned human being._

Appearance: _The __Nāga__ look like dragons, aquatic hydras, and serpents with a human face. In Sanskrit their name means royal cobra which is sometimes translated as serpent; but the actual word for serpent is sorpa and not __nāga__ . The original wave is inhabited by gigantic __Nāga__ on which Vishnu sits. The ruler of the seas, the Indian Poseidon, he is known as the King of the __Nāga__: __Nāga__-raja, whom iconography represents on a throne surmounted by a dais of crown of fantastic cobras with multiple heads._

_The __Nāga__ face is noble and pure. The __Nāgi__ is graceful and elegant in demeanor._

Dress: _Silky and gaudy, strewn with precious tones evoking the jewels of fabulous dragons…_

Food: _Delicious, delicately flavored dishes. Fish, meat, fruit, milk and flowers… and all the other food presented to them, according to the religious ritual of the __Pūjā. _

Habitat: _These genies build splendid residences at the bottom of the water from where they observe the world of humans and where they store extraordinary treasure of glittering gold and sparkling stones, guarded by dragons; the name of this fabulous kingdom is Bhogavati. Their cult is most wide-spread in the Deccan and Dravidian regions. They also live at the bottom of the seas. _

Habits: _The __Nāga__ follow the very strict rules of a king who is himself vassal of the ruler __Nāga__-r__āja. They are faithful to their pretty spouses, but this does not exclude amorous adventures with mortals._

Activities: The Nāga offer magical gifts to those who worship them, answer their prayers, restore them to health and heal their wounds, except for the poisonous bites of their brother snakes.

**The ****Nāga****:**

_There where the serpent goes, a god precedes it. -_ K. Wentz

"At that time King Seneka who ruled in Benares entered into an alliance with the King of the Nāga. One day, the latter had left his palace at the bottom of the sea and come to earth to claim what was owed to him. He was seen by some children who started throwing stones at him, saying: 'it is a serpent!' The king who was passing by on his way to his garden asked what was happening. He was told: 'Sire, it is children throwing stones at a serpent.' The king stopped them and chased the children away. So, saved from certain death, the King of the Nāga returned to his palace. There he selected a multitude of precious stones and in the night, he quietly slipped into Seneka's bedroom to give him the jewels, with the words: 'this is because you saved my life, oh king!' Having entered into an alliance with the king, he often came to visit him. According to the Kharaputta-Jataka, to ensure his new friend's safety he installed a young Nāgi female in the palace and taught him a mantra. The Nāga are the most famous and the most numerous genie-serpents in India. They are generous with those who honor them. The great Hindu epic poem of the Mahābhārata tells the story of the legendary struggle between the two clans of Kaurava and the Pandava in a hundred thousand verses. It says that, like the Gandharva and Apsarā, the Nāga and female Nāgi or Nāgini may marry mortals… One day, Arjun, the great hero, came down to the banks of the Ganges and went into the water to perform his ritual ablutions. Having completed them, he was just about to get out of the water to go and celebrate the morning agnihotra when this powerfully built hero was suddenly seized and dragged to the bottom of the sea by beautiful Ulupi, the daughter of the King of the Nāga, who was tormented by the god of love. And Pāṇḍu's son who spoke to Krishna was taken to a wonderful palace where Kaurava, the King of the Nāga, dwelt. Smiling at Ulupi, he asked her: 'Gentle Lady, what a terrible act you have just committed! Whose is this wonderful palace and whose daughter are you?' 'Prince,' she replied, 'I am the daughter of the celebrated Kaurava and my name is Ulupi. Tiger among men, when you entered the eater, the god of love stole my mind! Hero beyond reproach, know that I am not married; tormented by desire for you, how could I survive? Do me the favor of marrying me this very day!' 'There is one problem. On the orders of King Yudhisthira I made a vow to remain chaste for twelve years! Therefore, O charming lady, I cannot do as I would like. However, I promise to satisfy you and I have never told a lie in my life! So, dearest Nāgini, tell me how I can be happy with you without being guilty of lying and without breaking my vow, and I will obey you.' Having heard these words, the Nāgi saw to it that Arjun satisfied all of her desire, through virtue. All night long he stayed in the palace of the Nāga, only getting up in the morning when the sun began to rise. Accompanied by Ulupi, he returned to the banks of the Ganges, there where the river leave the mountains and enters the region of the plains. There the Nāgi left him and returned to the palace of Kaurava, but not without having first granted Arjun a special favor that made him invincible in the water. The Mahābhārata does not relate how Arjun satisfied the beautiful Ulupi all night long while remaining chaste. But there is no limit to the power of the Naga…!"

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><p>I've recently read an interpretation of them in "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" as well.<p>

Under _Serpent_ Barbara G. Walker writes: _The Indian Serpent-goddess Kardu gave birth to all the Nagas or cobra people, and made them immortal by feeding them her divine lunar blood.__She had a Babylonian counterpart, the Goddess Kaldi of Der, worshipped as a serpent with a woman's head and breasts.__ Her children like the Nagas were depicted as water-serpents, human from the waist up, like mermaids and mermen. The Nagas guarded great treasures of wealth and precocious stones, and sometimes books of secret teachings in underwater palaces. _

I first started learning about the Nagini when I was looking through a Harry Potter wikia article, I believe actually about Voldemort, but as I kept reading Nagini was of course mentioned, and the meaning of her name, which they simply said came from lore in Hinduism. Anyone who's read my profile knows I can't resist a good myth!

Besides the myths about the Nagini I consider what I'm familiar with about basic snake behavior as well to help bring this to life. I've learned a lot more about snakes from researching them for the purpose of this story, and have fallen in love with these powerful creatures, so that alone has made the story worth writing for me.

While I won't say I base her specifically on any other character, there are other mythological figures I feel she has things in common with as I flesh out her personality. The Apsarās are one, another magical spirit who can be found in Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian and Indian culture. The Selkies are another, shape-shifters from Faroese, Icelandic, Irish and Scottish folklore. I think the Mermaid Queen, Nyai Roro Kidul, of Javanese cultural history could've acted something like this too, or Oshun, a love and fortune goddess who appears in Nigeria, Brazilian and Cuba, through Santeria and Yoruba. Sometimes I see a little vampire in her too.

The strongest influence of this story of all is still J.K Rowling for me, as Nagini's simple and honest love for Voldemort is everything in this story, I just look at the way they interact with each other in the books and in the movies and just try translate what I see into a human voice.


	3. The Skin Box

Author's note: Hello. First I'd like to apologize, at least a week or two ago I told you I was coming right back. As you can see it didn't happen quite like that. I am sorry for jumping the gun and getting everyone excited, then keeping everyone waiting. I thought that I could write it quickly because I knew long ago everything that was going to happen in this chapter. But still, something about this part just took a lot out of me, it was a challenging sequence to write. I'm bringing in more of my own original world details now and I have to explain them. I put in a little more back story too. So it was just such a mouthful, it took time to paint it vividly and I still want to work on it some more actually. I hope it doesn't disappoint you if it shifts in tone a little, it'll be a little quieter than the last. But there will be plenty of action in chapter III. In fact, I had planned for the next chapter to be apart of this one. But it was already too big and fat of a chapter, so I had to opperate on it and split the two. It may have been an even longer wait before you got this, but fortunately Whisked came to my rescue and helped me edit. So give her a round of sound y'all! She has a sharp eye, she helped me keep the narrative flowing smoothly. So I want to thank her! Also I want to thank everyone out there who's checking this one out, not only those of you who wrote a review. People have also favorited me and subscribed from the shadows or written me some very nice PMs. What kept me going was all of that, your support of the work. You've waited patiently, and I couldn't leave you high and dry. So I worked hard, hope you like it!

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><p><strong>II<strong>

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.  
>Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.<br>Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day  
>I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.<p>

I hunger for your sleek laugh,  
>your hands the color of a savage harvest,<br>hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,  
>I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.<p>

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,  
>the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,<br>I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,  
>hunting for you, for your hot heart,<br>Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue."

-Pablo Neruda

It was custom in the land I spent the first part of my life in for beings capable of the highest magic to bear more than two arms. Four, six, eight and higher are more common numbers for arms and hands. Complex gestures were done in the casting, for those who did their magic without the need of wands. And for those who did, they oft required more than one wand, for so great was there power that it could not be divided into just one wand fitting them. The hues of their magic were so splendid and varied that it took a number of wandsto release all of their qualities, for their virtues were found in one wood, as well as another. All of those became a trophy of experience and proof of power. Thousand-armed warriors still exist in corners of the world. I was at a disadvantage as you can imagine with just these two for what I had to do. Having only two arms brought me down to the point of letting Tom's rat carry something I could not make myself close in my arms, it fell down whenever I tried. So I let him be bearer of a forbidden box, one marked with the image of the serpent of the stars, Ophiuchus. The image was carved in wood. Inside of it was the last skin I had shed.

I was reluctant to let him have that for the night, but I did as I did because I thought him more likely to want to take a thousand year-old cup from us than old skin. And so I held on to Tom's gold and gave him what was mine.

As soon as he opened the box he touched my emptied body. He held my corpse high up by the window before the moonlight, putting my nakedness in plain sight for any creature that happened by. I felt the nails of his paws digging into me on my shoulders. He had picked up my shed skin the way a human takes up their shirt.

I wished hard that he might die. Others of my kind would have been... how should I... "active" about getting this wish. I on the other hand was a follower. To you primates I am not Alpha, but Omega.

Marks seeped into my shoulders until my brown color was difficult to see, instead it was tender there, black and blue from what he unknowingly did. In his imbecility he had stummbled over... what they call it? The Heel of the Aristotle! This is the power of the skin of the Naga; although we live in different places, the connection is never severed. We grow a new body, but the one we take off never stops being ours. When it knows pain the suffering will come find us wherever we are.

I said nothing to make him aware of the bond between us, and turned my face away.

There were other powers of the skin. If someone came with swords and harmed me here, here in my present flesh, then the wound would close, just the way a flower may start its bloom but then shut itself when it is diseased. Any organ that was touched would also close its mark and become strong again. My blood would replenish itself, and there would be no scar. All of this so long as the skin I had shed was kept from those whose pleasure was to do me harm. The body that held my heart was as immortal as earth was. To crush out life they would have to call my elder skin from its hiding place, then they could deal with me if they like it.

They had me, so long as the weapon or their magic was used against a body I had freed myself from, one that could not hold me more, that could not serve me. Whatever they did to it would disfigure me where I stood, and the pains they inflicted would grow inside for as long as I could stand it. Every scratch lasted, the way that a dark spell lasts when it is cast on others. No amount of healing will change your state, the skin is dead already. How could it?

To wear the skin would protect whom it covered too; we would receive the burn, the blow, the knife or the curse in their place, even if we ran and hid.

We would do anything for the slimmest of chances that our skin would be ours again, so any animal, chimera, monster or mortal who obtained it would have the power absolute to get us to enact their will. Torture it enough and we say _yes_, _just promise to stop, just promise to give it up_.

There are stories about loosing our self-government, parables we are forced to remember, where we are said to have put every house of our treasure into another's hands, murdered anyone whose death our jailier coveted, even went so far as to live as their complacent wives when it was asked of us, all in exchange for a deceitful hope. Of course we would still be cheated out of what we desired when the time came for them to pay up.

If this unlawful master of our skin ever took a mind to destroy it then we would be turned to humans, never more being a serpent-walker or tasting any of the privileges of what we were, the magic of the house would break. We would also be killed by the anything that would kill a human, an unimaginative murder, a funny accident, an illnesses, or old age eventually if those others things proved too slow. Usually our own hand was the quickest remedy.

If we wanted to live we would not be witches and wizards either, not without our skin coats, just pawns in the world.

However, usually there was something left of us. If just any part of the skin was there still then we would live, and still be the Naga. Though the suffering we might be left in would be not worthy of anyone's envy.

We have to die two deaths to be destroyed beyond breath, to be so that the heart can not make a sound anymore, the pulse stir even a little bit, or the body warm itself. For this to be the fate of Nagas the old skin must go, and the new one right behind it.

A new gale of wind entered the house, the house already fallen from grace. The flimsy wood around us creaked and threatened to fall down upon us, crushing us till our bones stuck out. There was no wisdom in concerning myself with that though. What would concern do for me right there already in this dangerous house? Would it hold the house up? I would not be able to leave the house even if it were reduced to rocks, not unless I found Tom finally there under the split wood. There was still something we had not done correctly; he would not appear.

The wind's sound soon was greater than the cries of the house. The only sounds I know of that are similar to what went into my inner ear were the sounds of a stampede, one where everything residing in the jungle is terrified.

The wind was cold, water was in it. I would be unable to help Tom however or myself if the wind remained unyielding. Our bodies were mangled by cold, that is another weakness. True as all I have told you is, cold hurts my body and its functions. It will not heal itself if it is too cold. I do not die from evil weather, but the necessary processes are haulted or get slow, and deprived of them I die. What should keep me alive then? Hurry, hurry...

Good came of the raging winds though, it broke Rat's vulgar hold on my skin. She went flying about the room with the wind. I no longer endured his burning finger. I was going to stick one of these fangs in his finger, and take it and leave him only eight.

I took a look at my flying skin and made her settle on the floor. She would not get up again unless I took my eyes off of her, or looked at he more kindly. I had the power to stop things when I looked at them. I looked at a basilisk once. I fell under living sleep when that happened, a sleep without dreams and without forgetting, where I watched the world pass me by for centuries of nights. Things stayed like that until Tom came and open my mouth that had gotten so stiff with his breath, and my hard throat with a goblet of mandragora waters he had made for me.

I still remember what he said to me, "I would not stand to leave one of the earth's noblest of creatures encased here."

Ever since then I too could petrify what I saw, I had the basilisk's eye.

But I had to take greater care when casting this spell, as I cast it upon myself in looking at my own skin. So I only looked at her a little, just enough to keep her from floating away, not to wring all movements from her. I felt this effect, the wind seemed to slow down before my eyes and my body grew heavy and it grew lazier. But was this not an advantage against wind? I was unmoving when other objects in the house were cast down.

The rat hurried over there to pick up the missing part of me. I might have summoned it to me with the wave of my hand, but it was too dangerous to hold my own skin at once in a storm. If I were hurt then whatever struck me could wound my skin just as well, there was a possibility that both parts of me could die in the same moment; that would be reckless!

I let him pick up the skin and stopped that gaze. I was beginning to feel like I might fall asleep because of the spell I was performing, I was bringing myself too close to the magic sleep. I'd fall into the dreamer's hole.

I looked down at the cup I knelt over, holding it with my hands, rain had begun to enter it. Drops of cold blood sprayed from the rattling cup, but its contents mostly still remained in the center. I did not know what spell I should cast. What to do with this watering cup?

As I looked into the raging cup I watched the dark blood change before my eyes. There was a rose-colored skin growing across the brim of the cup. The skin of a human. I looked into the deep of this drinking cup, and there were also a few shed flakes of skin circling the metal walls, floating on top of the dark sea. To me they were little lotuses on water.

A little healthy skin began to spill over the sides of the cup, but this skin was wet, it was water boiling over a cauldron. I could tell it was hot too, the heat vapors spread to my body.

The skin was spilled over the floor in a puddle, it quickly took the shape of a wand within a serpent, the aegis. It settled, calcified on the floor as a soft tattoo. I was curious about it, the skin looked no different than the way it would appear on a man or a woman, it was of the healthiest specimen, bright and soft-looking. I imagined myself touching it, in my fantasy it would be as smooth as it looked. It was not my custom in true deed to disturb a thing that's properties I did not understand, no matter where my imagination led me. I knew how that felt. But then I thought, Tom may need this skin, I should not leave it here.

As gently as I knew how to I picked up the skin. It had cooled and was sticking to the floor, I had to peel it off. I placed it on top of the cup, where the other part of his skin had grown in the manner of ivy while I looked down until it had taken the whole goblet over. The top of the metal cup was covered completely in lightly-colored skin, forming a seal.

The storm had ended, but that made things no different. I had the calm of my purpose to perform whatever magic that cup needed in the rain if it was what was required of me.

I drew toward our servant with three of my fingers on my left hand, and he did as I bid him do, hurrying over to me with my dress of skin. We stared at this glorious marriage of dark magic and traditional arts that was the cup of skin, the horn of life, the bleeding grail, a oblet of new beginnings. I smiled at it.

After the respecting silence I raised the man-flesh from the cup into the air just by opening the palms of my hands. It hovered there, a stone or two's length from touching the center of my hands. Traditional Naga magic was without wands and done without words, we were after all there before such things had been created.

The cup's creation began weaving itself like a rope, ribbons of skin came out! I twisted my fingers in different directions to make this so. I made the magic steps up as I thought of them. This spell came from my beating heart, and not the minds' of ancient books.

Light the color of stars outlined the new flesh. There in the center of the room it floated torch-like, revealing everything that the room had to offer.

I bent back a palm and let my wrist go limp, then my own dead skin traveled through the air too. It moved up the walls coiling like a side-winder snake finding her direction, then it encased Tom's flesh. The two were interlocked, white human skins visible through the dark, transparent body. Something alive and new born by something that was not, the ghost of something that had been. Death and life united.

A snake sheds his skin but gets a new body, living just as whole with the other part, a Naga does this too and we are much more complicated then men just by form alone. Why should then not a man grow inside such a skin and find himself newly made? The answer would come to me later in my life through my body, since I could not know it with my mind...

In this part of the world I have watched humans hide their dead in boxes, the sarcophagus, the casket. Such a box were Tom's remains now in, a soft box. My skin contained them. I could see them in the parts where it was sheerest. This was a funerary rite, but it was a rite of life. It was an egg in its way too! My egg and I would give him again to the world.

I let my hands press themselves together and the creation drifted to the ground. I stood there, raising myself to my full height and waited for the rat to take it away.

Both my khussa were wet from the storm, and there was the feel of insects underneath my feet, (although they would be good to eat,) I was growing impatient with his lack of wit with me now. I pointed at the creation, and finally he was on his way to us. I felt the fire in my own eyes, he would have been petrified by me if he had continued to stand there and do nothing in the hour of our needs. I would not have meant it, but that would not have helped him I do not believe. I did not know the way of potions and was too old and lazy to learn them right.

I straightened my clothing while I waited for him, the sari, the bracelets. I scooped my hair behind my neck, hiding it in my shawls, the way the black falls kept getting in my face bothered me. I wanted to turn to snake. I would no more horrible beauty tonight, I had just given birth!

It was raining again, just little, little drops for the moment. They would not be the storms that took place earlier, that was not natural rain. I believe that madness was the part of his life that hid in the cup calling out, trying to call to the part of him that resided without a body. The reversals in the natural order of life made the storms.

He had prepared himself, and so we left. I let my left hand flicker as we walked away and the cup was brought to me, gripped tight in my hand. I could feel the rain water of this vulnerable house washing the blood from the metal as it showered. I never glanced at this cup though, to feel it was all that was necessary.

As we went back down the stairs I saw the house for the first time. Seeing the pictures on the wall, the woman who died was there, the glass she was behind was covered with water from the rains. She was there with what must have been her offspring, the babe she was still defending when she died. A male, nearing his second year of life, completely healthy from what I could tell. There was a man in their pack too, with a partial helmet to cover his eyes with, flimsy though it was. It looked like it was made of only glass, and the thinnest metal he could find. Why so impractical? What was the advantage in style for this dangerous device? It would shatter in his face in the right battle. He used his ears to hold up the helmet. I suppose he was hailed as a great inventor.

I stood behind him and he opened the door for us to leave the place. I adjusted my own eyes as we entered a greater darkness, letting my pupils open themselves into a longer shape, hoping for more light.

As I stood in the doorway I found that we were being greeted by a congregation of snakes!

They were simple garden snakes of lower castes. I have heard them called "Grass Snakes" and "Smooths" in the common tongue.

Thousands of them had come, they had covered the fields for as far as the mahoganies and willows stretched. There were also several snakes who bore the markings of faraway lands, "The Boa of the Kenyan sands" and the "Boa of Roses." He of "the rough tail" I recognized from the former world, their population thrived there. There were also several cultures of snake I did not know yet, and had met no ambassador from.

They crawled up the sides of the house, getting a good view. They rose out of pots for flowers in place of their bloom. They knocked pieces of the house's roof off as they shifted their positions. They intertwined with each other on the stone flooring we stood on.

I slowed my step so that I would not disturb a soul. Rat had stopped at the door, assessing them as danger. I could sense him stroking his wand slightly underneath his cloak, but he waited for me before he did something foolish.

It was no haunting secret why they had come to me. Tom was known to them. He was a lion among his species, an advancer of the human race, victorious, important, with a light that shined so that many of earth's creatures knew of him and longed for his gold touch. I was not the first affiliated with serpent kingdoms that he had spoken with, of that I am confident. It is not at all surprising that someone out here might have spoken to him before. And once you have spoken with him you never lose the taste for hearing more of him. Apart from his obvious personal merits he also has declared himself open to future alliances between his world and ours, an alliance that has not been considered in history before him.

This man, who since his boyhood would sit on his knees with a snake and talk, who knew all the words we knew, had meant to them some tiny part of what he had meant to me.

I quickened my pace as they parted their way for me. As I looked about the faces in the crowds my legs began to hurt me, I felt uncomfortable in this role of a woman, here among my greater family.

As I walked the short and paved road they began to bend their bodies in prostration. Some crawled at my feet and licked the toes of the shoe tips with their tongue. Hard they tried to mimic the behavior of humans just for me.

"Mother" they said, as they sank their teeth into my feet. I also heard the words "Maharani," "Shrimati" and "Goddess."

The Naga and their female counterpart, Nagini, headed the chain among the earthly classes of Reptile. Dragons followed, nation was irrelevent, whether you were of Ryu or a Gyo, then basilisks, nesses, hydras, they all stayed all below us. Even the divine snakes, were not set higher than equal to Naga in class alone, not Nuwa the Creatress and inventor, the divine alchemist, who built everything in her corner of the earth, who made men out of clay, and created to kingdoms by putting up a wall, one for those who lived in the stars, and one for those who must walk around on earth, not even the Queen of the rainbow, one who lived in a realm called Dreamtime who sprung out of the earth and inhabbited the deepest center that even insects could not find their way out of, and was named Lady of the Sun and Waters, and leaves her image for others to find in paints on the deepest cave. No, sometimes by fame and accomplishment they would rise past Nagas in rank, but not by birthplace. The snakes before me were at the muddy bottom of this hierarchy.

Who they really wanted to see was Tom, just as I wanted it. But they did not want to offend me, they feared I would exorcise power over them. I would never.

They lined up all in the garden as I walked past. I thought of saying something to give them happiness and hope, but I knew not what that would be. I did not think I should reveal too many of Tom's secrets. I also was not clever with spoken words. Was it correct of me to stand there too, and be one that gives order? And I hated feeling all of the eyes on me, this is what it is like to be stalked in the wild. Worse even, when you are lost in the dark at least you cannot see what sees you, you do not have these worries. And If you do die it will take you by surprise. It may be a quick death.

But still I walked with focus on the air in front of me. I saved my look from all of them, and I clutched the cup so hard it might have been Tom's hand. And I held it to my face as I've seen lighted candles held up to brighten the world in front of you, scared as I was.

The dynamics of no species allow for you to act obviously afraid of those you are around. I've watched Tom use dramatic spells against those who would challenge him or seek to restrain him, as I have seen lizards open their mouths and birds flap their wings wild about me in their belief that something to a similar effect would take place.

I went walking down the English road without purpose. I had left the house, when Rat came running behind me out of breath. I had forgotten him too.

"You were wonderful Miss Nagini!"

He could make me smile at least. Really you think that about me? My grinning mouth and eyes told him those words.

I might have dropped the cup, I do not really know how I was holding it, my thoughts were not with it, I was free of care. Tom was really here on earth! The night was a beautiful one, citrines hanging from the dark. And in the center lighting our way was a giant, smooth and juicy ostrich egg!

I took him by the hand and ran through the night with him. I went as fast as I might, Peter was tripping over his rat feet as we escaped over the wet grass.

I felt a sound in my mouth as we ran, I felt it in my jaw. It was the sound of air being cut. A sword makes a sound like this. When I looked to find the sound I saw that there were many dark shadows flying towards us, traveling through the air…

_To be continued… _

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><p><strong>Another note: <strong>This chapter has been dramatically edited since I posted it a week or two ago. I really wasn't liking my description of the skin. However, I still have the original. If you want me to still incoporate some of what I wrote last time, a particular line you missed for example, we can talk about it. I'm very open and in a good mood when I get a private message.

-Belyakov


	4. The City of Shadows

"And knowing how the common-folk condemn what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm Being a woman, being a woman"- Joanna Newsom

**III**

Distant figures were following us. What could they want?

A quick light came forward out of the darkness. A thing that had the look of a shooting star began to fall down to the country where I was. The sparks of magic started to fill the sky with light. I was curious and amused, where I should have been guarded. Scattered moonlight it was to me for as far as beauty goes, I just wanted to look at it. And what did I have to be afraid of really? I had only raised the dead this nightly hour. I cared only a trifle. I watched the light fall and fall, not even sure of what in the world it was. When it came close to me I deflected whatever magic it may have been, the feeling that I should be guarded came right on time. I made the hex rebound with my hand.

When I did that a tree (I felt it resembled the trees) began to grow up and up high in the sky. Tree roots in the middle of the air; imagine! I say that now, like it was funny. But I did not understand the magic, it frightened me to see such root coil across him and pull his arms close from the sockets.

The black figure who cast the spell was tangled in a maze of his own design; he could not fly this way at me anymore, he only hanged there, tangled by what was holding him. I watched a broom fall to the grounds, what he evidently used to fly for me with.

I called his broom to me, I moved it with my thoughts. I let it float in the air just above my hands so I might see it well. What is this magical object exactly I never touch what is from another witch or wizard, it could be very dangerous. But this time ... it was a nice wood. I held it tight in my hands, squeezing such slim rosewood, the polish was remarkable. How do they do such things? Far too long had I lived in a cave, why I had not come out much since they finished Tom or tried to.

OAK SHAFT 79, the broomstick said, written in a yellow alphabet. I felt the letters, their edges in the wood. It was dark, so I only saw the bright of the paint, I read the wording with the senses in my fingers, and kept my eyes on the sky and what new antics they were up to up there.

The writing must have been the wizard's name. I ran my hand across the name. It was so foolish of old Oak Shaft to write his name, the first rule of magic is that you can bewitch another just by having the power over their name, I could not believe what he had done.

Peter ran all around getting our work from the house together, getting his wand out with some clamor.

"Hurry or you'll be trapped!" he panted.

"Hurry before he says Incarcerous again!"

That was all very uninteresting, I was more interested in the broom. I climbed ontop of it, maybe I should come up there and see what I can do from the air.

The broom rose many inches off the ground by its own will, and I sat on it and felt that all life was a river...

Have you ever been placed under an Imprerious curse? I have, thats how lovely the broom was as it asked to carry me onward. It tickled, it was bodies taking sweaty joy from one another and climbing skin, the enjoyment of lying down ontop of that skin, it was good on me as the drink that can make men slur their speech and strike the man beside him dead after just a little sip, cups that looks like you are drinking blood.

I hovered another inch off of the ground laughing.

The ones out there ambushing us with their laughable tactics came a little closer now, daring to show some face. Let him do whatever he liked, I have a broom too.

One of them came flying down so close that I saw his face. He had seen such battles, scars of some hoary old lion, and he had just one eye with a mechanical instrument in the other. Why wasn't this old bear put out of his misery?

I would not fly up there, I slowly stepped off my new broom onto ground. I felt it was vulgar to fight with him too much, he, I could let him live if he only would desist, but he too flew at me on a bewitched broom, howling counter spells while pointing his wand over me, planning to harm me. I put up my hand again and stopped his voice in the middle of his enchantment. I made the shape of the fist, and pictured his voice box right there in my palm as I did it, crushing it until it was dust, that is how I sealed his gift of speech away from him. Just stop making noise, I don't like it! I might have taken him apart in all his metal, and seen for myself exactly how he worked, all of this armour... but there was Rat bothering me again, before I could unscrew him.

The rat was taking great care to hide his face from these people. Did he know them?

"Aurors! Its an Aurora Miss!"

Oh would he not stop this "Miss-miss" business. And yes, yes, It was almost dawn in a few hours, that was true, but I did not see what the importance of any of that was. We had people coming from everywhere! Who cares about the sky right now? The aurora would be there tomorrow. I leaned in to ask him about what he was saying, I could not have understood that right, he could not seriously be trying to behold the sky. But there was no time! I turned back to the sky and the violence there raining down on us from the men (I judged them to be) left in the clouds. But then Peter grabbed me by my arm. I was surprised by his newly-found confidence, but not so distracted that I could not fire over my shoulder while we were being pursued. I opened my mouth and kissed my own hand, blowing saliva at our attackers. The drops of my spit turned into enchanted snakes that would plague them for awhile.

The anxiousness I had known turned to some excitement. I had not played with a human in so long, they knew to stay away from my cave, no matter how many things of mine were waiting for them, they would not come in here for even a great blue diamond once I had named Hope... I do not know what I did with that diamond. Anyhow, sometimes I put my nicest of things outside to see what would happen, whole diamonds sitting there in the mud, hoping for a little attention. But the rumors of where I lived had reached too many neighbors of mine, never once did my trick work, and nobody came. The tales had grown in proportion too, that I ate virgin girls like chicken, that I bit men on the neck and their eyes went red, and that they came back as some sort of fairy changeling sucking down animal blood or their own kind. Then there was the story that I needed a bottle of somebody's blood to make a beauty charm. How they flattered themselves with their fireside stories of bravery in the face of me, and my dependency upon them to live. Perhaps I did need them more than they knew...

I lifted the sacred cup in the air with one hand, hoping that Tom might be able to see some of these men, and find some humor while he was indisposed. My sense of humor was back and I was laughing with delight.

Suddenly the world around us began to move… I must learn not to laugh, bad things happen I have noticed every time, I am a terrible over-estimator.

The road we were on turned in a circle. The shape of the path changed; that very road melted right there. Everything was forgotten, hills and houses! The stones were as without form as water! Everything else disappeared just like that.

I looked everywhere for all the things that had been around us, there was only the night sky left there enfolding us all. Every law that the stars and and the earth were bound by broke down, what I saw was a magic land, a place of terrible magic.

The stars erased themselves. I was not even the darkest cave. The stars and a moon were always there, no matter how hidden they were! Everything here was just going black.

I just stood there feeling the fear of what was to come as the darkness took us over. There were winds blowing my red cloak, that made it plain that this was real and not a trick of the eye.

I had become a child in my heart, that helpless of body, and that lacking in understanding. Dark walls closed in on me until it was tight in there, if you seek to know what that is to be closed away as I was, it is having fallen down a well or being buried in soils with the worms while you are still living.

For a moment I had hope I might have been inside of a predator's mouth, and could fight my way out of it, but then there were these shadows moving, moving around but without bodies of men or animals or any higher species like myself that such a shadow could belonged to, they kept walking entirely on their own. The live shadows started touching my hands like weeds. They moved with life, as much life as tentacles and hands. They constricted my wrists, but my senses were deadened to what they felt like, I could not feel them really, or smell or taste of them. They made no noises.

I pulled away from the things clutching for me, but there was nowhere I could run. I looked up at the sky eaten away. Where in the name of my spots and stripes was I? Was I in a water hole? In a house for the dead?

All we stood on, everything around us had turned to darkness! I looked down and saw my own feet were hanging in the middle of the air, there was no road there anymore.

I closed my eyes, I could not look at this! I just closed my eyes and began to say some worded magic, so many things, things not of my bloodline, nothing to do with Naga. I did all things. I tried to see if it was an illusion or not, I tried to use spells to trap a man or woman if they be attacking me, I tried to burn with the shadows if they were living things.

I looked and I saw Peter! The shadows were covering us both; I could not make him out after that, the shadows just kept growing everywhere, all around! He was trying to hold me, I could feel a pain, pressure on me, this rope getting so tight, he was puling me up with one of those big, hairy arms of his so we did not fall into this box of shadows and not get our selves back out. He wrenched into me and was breaking my arm trying to hold me. Bless my skin; where were we?

The darkness all around me started moving stronger and heavy, all I could think of was water. I had to fight not to sink into the shadows that were taking us, they came in wave after wave to knock us down with, we were in an ocean of these black ghosts. My clothes were not stained and my flesh did not get wet by the pool, but I was carried away all the same as if it were water. The abyss as it spilled pushed us far away from one another and we were both of us on our own, no more Rat, I could not sense him at all... .

I could not help him, I had to look to myself.

I held the cup up high above my head as shadows trickled down its wall, but instead of drowning as I believed I was... I started to fall, and we fell into a pit together, just that piece of Tom and I now.

You would never believe what I felt of all things as this was happening... In the midst of all terrors, as I looked upon my death, or never got a look at my death in fact, I began to drift off to sleep in this darkness. I kept feeling my eyelashes touching me in the face and sand coming into my eyes. I felt my head be of no weight on my shoulders, I felt I had no weight in any place of my body. Then I went under water into the abyss.

I saw a light, there were many lights, shadows of color, I saw every sort of tone there was through the chinks in the shadows for a second. I reached for that light, trying to get this carcass of mine to safety... but then all of the hopeful lights disappeared... just like the moon and the ground. I saw unpleasant things after they were taken away. I saw a butchered face ... Peter's!

I realized I could not get my breath out of my mouth... choking.

I scratched Rat's face with all of my strength, dipping my fingers with his blood so that he would stop hurting. I couldn't keep my breath, my breath was being stopped by something. Despite my nails he had managed to hold me tight again. I was so weakened from trying to scratch him back to his senses that I fell over my own feet.

I fell onto little rocks and sands, not the mud on the road we were last walking on, I was somewhere else... but it was not the way the dark had felt, no! No, these were things that opened my sense of touch like all things in the world had done before that disappearing city, the rocks and breaking grounds had a presence. Before I could open my eyes and see that there was indeed a stone or two there I felt their broken glass of a touch as they pinched me in my back and bled me. I felt their lack of heat, and the scars the stone bore. I even felt splinters of fine porcelain spilling my blood. I was lying in a pile of things it seemed, I felt mortal food and other wastes and a bag with things inside of it underneath the place where I was lain. And I picked up the salty scent of a wetland with even this poor human nose, and heard the proof of it, water dripping in waves very close to here. Was I safe now?

"We've only disapparated to Albania, where I found the dark lord."

This was accompanied to the sound of a pair of bow-legged knees knocking together.

I've heard that word before, de-asp-ray-tah. How could I remember where though as many lifetimes as I have seen? A frail voice was whispering that word.

"Disapparation moves us from place to place instantly..."

These words were like the art of poetry. Mortal men gave poems to me in Egypt and in Greece, they were always worded with phrases I had heard before in that language, but that never held any meaning for me when they were arranged together, as if it were a new language utterly. A strange art form, the weaving together of words, but no more strange I gather than to dance, moving your feet when it does not get you to where you are going. Or to replicate color with the insides of shells from the sea or the particles of a rock, and color yourself a record of a man or woman that does not resemble them really to me.

I could not see, but I heard Tom's cup jingling across the grounds, rolling away. I played the fool for a moment and reached after it, purely by my instinct, an instinct I would not have been able to summon for even my own eggs with my snakelets defenseless inside of them. Then I realized what I was doing, and how dangerous it was, and remembered to defend myself first somehow. How did I know I was safe?

As soon as I grabbed after the cup my wrists burned, down to the bone they were eaten with something evil.

I lifted my head, It was so heavy to lift, but when I looked up to see my enemy and who it was I saw a field of light… the light of the sun in the middle of the day.

I was there on a clear plane in the daylight, and could feel the shrill chorus of the damned birds making their chirp sound, they were piercing in my body, hitting my skin with their sound and it would not stop. But I was too panicked, too much in confusion to stop and see where they came from so that I could break each of their necks. I swore by all the snakes in Ireland to eat fowl alive should I survive this day.

There was sunlight coming down and not the moon, it warmed my flesh. Night had become day. The shadows, they'd gone, all of them. My whole world had been turned upside down and put back as it once was.

I was more scared now than ever, no matter if this place looked safe; how did it come here? How did it come to be from where we were in the part of England with the old house, and the yards of death where they bury people. I used my elbows to drag myself further, ignoring my hands that throbbed with warmth, so taken was I with the change of scape that I did forget a little. I forgot how to use a human's body... I was getting old. How hard was this?

I also heard the ocean water filling itself nearby. What I could not hear was Rat, as though he was not there with me. I felt too broken up to gather all of my senses together so I might have been wrong, I was one step from coming apart like threads. I turned my head around and tried to push myself off of this mess of earth with these human hands, but fell forward onto the stone hurting myself again, I had no balance. As I tried to grab onto something to steady myself with I saw that my hands were gone… cut from my body. Blood came out of torn matter where my hands would have been.

I forgot I was being hunted, all I could do was watch my hands die in my shock. My eyes were passed their early pain and fatigue, I stared with them at each missing hand until my tears finally fell out, then my eyes were covered over again, and I was blind again but from the water of it, from the pain.

Look was all I did for awhile. While I stared at my long bloody arms in the sunlight I thought of Tom and how he had saved me. I remembered when he kissed me decades ago and that it made me walk again, talk and be able to use magic once more. I kissed my relics of arms, hoping that a kiss could do it again, that it may have been the kiss as much as the Madragora blood.

I could not breathe properly from the waters of tears closing my throat with channels. And the kiss was terrible, it was a terrible thing I did. Hanging flesh tickled my lips, I felt the blood slipping down my chin, my lips were painted. The prospect of death became more horrible.

I touched each wounded arm to one another, like I would if I still had hands, feeling to see if it was real, see if they were gone.

I wrapped my handless arms around my breasts. I tried to stop my blood from falling with an embrace. Tightly, underneath my arms I kept my open wrists hidden. I collapsed with them into the earth, and lay on my back in that earth bleeding out. How was this happening? How could I loose those hands? If there was ever an attack on my body it would heal. Would it not? But where were my hands?

As I lay dying from not having hands the sun was hard and extreme. The sun was so red, it was melting. The blowing sands reminded me of the gold I use to find in waters when I was tiny. I know one man who would think so little of me for thinking this, though the story had to do with his kind. As I lost consciousness I had a memory of this little thing that was long ago.

Gold is something I have in common with the humans, many of us like it, and we would all take pans, mortals and myself to fresh spots and try to separate the rocks from the goods. I learned the art from small humans still in the cub form of a human, working hard. They also had heavy weapons (which I would never touch) to cut the earth with and pull the stones out, taking them to the lower caves. When I had picked out all the nicest gold I gave the children all the pieces I did not want. I would usually give a female a little bit more, but if the child was male I might kiss him. I picked the place that I did to live in because there was such a gold over the walls and the floor of the cavern, a gold that was nothing but powder growing naturally there, to remind me of kinder years.

It was hot. It took my mind off of things, of being broken in two. The heat would speed up my death I thought. I cooked, but the sweat that poured down from me cooled me a little, and so started this mocking cycle of protracted death.

Rat was on the horizon looking at me, a look of pity. _Why must **you** be my last image while I am alive? _

_Why do I feel you are responsible for my demise?_

I looked at what I could see of the rest of my body, my scratched ankles, my legs covered in white yards of my dress.

The sun was shaking, I watched the vapors dance back and forth on the land nearby me.

I saw parts of a man with the corner of one eye; I saw his arms. He wore black, and leaned over me. A face the shadow of the desert hid away from me. Hair that went waving, brown-colored strands, they touched me as the man in the hair knelt down, getting next to me. A drop of human sweat fell off of the curls that were bothering his face. I could smell his shadow itself, and it was the taste of the dead.

_To be continued…_


	5. Yew, Phoenix, Emeralds and Gold

"He was part of my dream, of course- but then I was part of his dream too." - **Lewis Carroll**

**IV**

Was this the face and figure of death itself? Or was it something ripped out of the boxes of the dead by a greater witch than I?

Two clothed arms came upon me and had me cornered, the knuckles and palms on these hands buried their skin in the sand, and kept themselves right next to my neck, one of those sleek hands an inch away from each side of my face. He pinned me down, never touching me though, just tangling me up with the threat of him and his unviolent body. I neighed and almost brought a scream from my voice box, even knowing full well what this was that came towards me like a vampire or an old mummy.

Even though I could not see into one of its eyes, or even feel his face… I knew. Scents I had met a thousand times before filled my nostrils. I smelled a hand that had handled the sweet yew tree, in this case the wizard's wand was made with such a tree. The tail of a phoenix still afire also was in the air, the smell of it searing a boy's skin. I knew this burn to be from an accident of childhood, one where the core became unstable once. I could smell time and its passage over a bad wound, this happened when these hands were small. It had been healed over many times, but you can never hide the smell of burning flesh from a beast, it never goes anywhere for every magic trick tried, healing spells, potions and glamors had no more power to really change the wound than water does.

These same hands had saved a basilisk's life, treating her wounds, and so smelled of her blood ever after. It was a powerful smell that it made the discovery of all others a much slower process. It was a comforting smell when he woke me out of my paralysis, I thought he was one of my own. Lying here in the sand I knew exactly what creature had touched all these things… a Riddle, an eater of death, a knight from Walpurgis, a Voldemort, and evidently a lord of darkness. There was no real need for me to insist on smelling him, I had a thousand proofs of his identity, but still I chose to do everything in my power to continue to inhale this quality of a person, for it was more pleasing to me than perfume.

The hands I loved very much had opened a lambskin-covered book once, that was the smell I picked up in his skin next. I remember this book, I'd seen him with it, the flayed lambchop used to make the cover was delectable. I did not lick it ... fine I did. Its called a Diary Book, and they are books of pain. I would look in it when he was asleep sometimes… I could not read it entirely well, but I could feel the pressure of the quill on the paper, I knew an author's countenance by the shape of what they had written gown, when they made the mark and felt distressed while they did so, or if it was a loose and long mark made with despair, barely visible because the ink was tapped with such indifference. Just look at the way things are shaped and you too would know, the change of a mark is exactly the same as change of the look on a face.

Jewelry had been passed through these hands too- emeralds, there was a gold piece set with them. This one had meant a lot to him, the stone was nearly embedded in his skin, its quality so deep inside of him he had either held it often or hard. He did not wear it, I could smell no other part of his skin on the jewels, not his neck, his wrists, but in his hands. Looking at it was the real comfort he took.

The one visiting me now would wash his hands over and over again, I had not seen that in a while, but I could smell scratches in the skin from where he scrubbed too hard. I remember seeing him do it plenty of times when he was young and it would concern me. I recall watching the skin fall off his hands in the basin. It got on my nerves.

There were more things, objects, that knew his flesh than the scents of creatures… save tiny snakes, the taste of different ones were in my mouth, for I breathed them too, getting traces of their identities too, where they were from, what they might have looked something like, all from just from his skin, left over from when he'd picked them up by the hand when he was very small. The soft feel of shells hatching in his open palms mingled with the smell of shed skin. There was also the echo of dead snakes he had held and brought back to life when they were going to die.

As the hair came out of my face there he was, the snake charmer, ever lovely, sixteen again.

As he appeared I gave no thought to how he had come to me, or how improbable it was. If I had been a soul who demanded answers for everything I would not have this story to tell, for I would not have been stopped a great many points earlier. It was too good that he had come here for any _thoughts_ to know my mind. There were no thoughts! There were only feelings, and their names were all joy.

His eyes were just a grain of sand's away from mine, opened and dark, the night plants in bloom getting bigger and heavy, putting me in the mouth of his eyes. He could swallow me whole. That soft mouth was not a whole inch away from my own mouth. It was as though we were connected together by clay and apart of the same work of art, like a child's marionette toy, perhaps even like ropes on those taken captive together. We were some space apart, yet the connection was never severed.

I managed to tilt my head a little though, just to see him. _I care not if you are real or if you are not, just keep showing yourself to me._

He rose up and would not touch me, just loomed over me. I was missing the clay that held us together. I reached for him to stay with the hand I did not have. It didn't occur to me then how untempting I might have been with a torn off hand. _Why won't you come into my arms Tom? _The desert image crouched by me, sitting up and cat-like, instead of like the mortal I appraised him as with all my senses.

He put his fingers about my chin and over the lip, hissing into my mouth, seeking my quiet. I saw a flash of something else for a second, something white, a piece of skull, or it resembled a skull piece. Then it went away. I do not know what I was seeing, I only saw his very much young and alive face when I looked back for the exposed bones. Only attractive things like open lips and skin like the olive plant.

He came close to me so gently. He just stayed there with his hard look and his breath, until he almost touched my cheek with his long and wet tongue. His breath was ice, it froze all life in me just like that. My breath was shallow and did not come to me. Death.

He did touch me after a moment of eying me up and down, my forehead, he touched there with his palm, I felt his short life line cut across me, and the great distance between the head line and itself. He touched my hair that was falling down in his way with those fingers, ever long, turning my face to the dirt, checking to see what more of me was hurt. One hand he was resting on my cheek, with the other he twisted fingers around hairs at the nape of my neck, he did that with my hair every once and again before this foolishness with the hollow and the house, always it was painful and before now I could bite him for it.

Though that annoyance he made with his hand told me again who he was, the hands themselves were like metals, cold as though they'd just been wrenched from out of the earth from a shallow one of those graves. I did not know if this was further proof of who he was, that he had come out from where the dead were hiding, or if this was suppose to warn me that this was something else. I leaned away from him, trying to slide away still a woman, but forgetting and moving like a snake.

"Nagini," he whispered into my neck and the hair fallen and wrapped around it from his mishandling. He talked to my hair, and I felt my locks move for him, they came to life.

I could only breathe back to him, I could not talk, the sun was wringing my life out of me, all I could do was reveal my tongue and hold my eyes from their close for one more split of the second while I died there right next to him.

There was a long time of words, I understood very little of it even though he spoke to me in our own language, a language much older than any word art known to man. I could not hear his perfect parsel tongue because the part of me that was a snake had long died in this heat, it was the human part that was the only one left here clinging to life as it was abandoning her, that was the part of me that was happiest with Tom, and stayed a little from death to be with him.

Everything he said was a language I did not know, my own language I had forgotten. He went on whispering without any listening back or word of speech from me, he seemed to be talking more to himself, as if he were so use to me trailing behind him and hearing whatever he would like to say, so use to quiet agreement, that he took the silence of death as further agreement. But he did look worried, and the parseltongue became more of a stress of him to say.

I realized my head was across his knees in his lap... I saw those hands framing my cold face, they seemed older when I looked at them now, older than the young face he had, lined, without their firmness. I suddenly felt the urge to kiss these old hands, and found strength to put them to my lips.

I raised my useless arms to them, meaning to hold his hand in mine, the way I would grab an arm and kiss a ring, but I hurt my arms, and the hurt tore through me until it came out my mouth.

I stopped screaming when his hand filled my mouth, closing the yell, and with the right hand he twisted my two harmed wrists in his hand, holding the blood back with his grasp.

"Release me!"

He was crushing me, he stopped my blood, he was helping me, but it felt like he was killing me.

He took me into his chest, where my face was against his cold skin. I felt the knives of bones that his finger had turned to touching the hairs on my head. He whispered as he held me to him. I just cried out over whatever he said, I was in great pain. While I carried on groaning he made a Sshhh-shhh sound like a bee, and rubbed my back, and I stopped myself from crying.

"Naga," he said.

I felt weighted down, it was strain to lift my own head up, but I lifted my weights for him, so that he could see me.

"You have done well," he said and put his hand on my face again, at the neck.

I put my head down for him to cradle some more.

"The cup will save you, but you have you to pick it up," his voice, always a soft boy of a thing, became hoarse and strange.

I felt so strange, the world was disappearing as I watched it, all that was left was his voice.

To keep myself from slipping away I stayed focused on his eyes, those eyes were the eyes of my people. Big and black animal eyes he had, that is why I felt safe in his eyes when he woke me up in the Chamber of the Sacred Secrets.

His low voice was a song for me to be put to sleep by, a long movement of siren music. No, I was putting myself to sleep. I heard the sound of sirens before when I took to the waters looking for the shells that had the pearls in them. (Such stones I have come to find very disappointing, but that is another story.) I know from experience that siren voices have no effect on me, I eat them like salted shark. I could wake up if I wanted. He knew that… how lazy I was here and now with my own life and with his, as I had his cup. Tom, most things mean so little to you, but living, that you are serious about. I suppose thats how it should be, things come and go, but sometimes life is eternal.

I thought I was shaking my head so that I could say to him _yes_, _I want to live, I want to live with you and drink from your cup. _I have seen the humans do this gesture ever since I can remember. I was not sure he would be able to hear me if I spoke, if I could even speak. I did say yes out loud though, and either he heard my whisper or read my face.

He had been bracing my head much like a cub's head in need of the parent, but with that he sat me back on the earth and left me there, setting my head where the sands in a place where he had scooped up sand in a pile to make it nicer like a pillow. I noticed that his skin even now lacked the warmth that all humans give to snakes, it was cold because he was dead. He was not here with me, I was there with him wherever those who are not alive hunt.

When he put me aside I was not able to raise my head anymore, not without his help, and my eyes were getting weakened by light, and I think I was starting to dream, but what I remember was the image of a skeleton, where there had been Tom.

Windstorms began to sound in a moment that reminded me of all we'd experienced just one hour earlier in the house Tom was destroyed in. The sands rose with the winds, all of it, the air of the earth and its trash circling us. The specter's outline grew fainter behind the funnel.

I squinted my eyes, which did very little to block the separated pieces of earth that flew at them. Rat knelt down next to me. His yellow hair blowing nearly off his balding skull.

_Where was he? Where was Tom?  
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I could not hear the words that came from his mouth, and there were many things he said, I could tell by the way his mouth moved wildly. He was holding up the magical cup of the evening pointing to it over and over again it with his missing finger.

_Where was he?_

_**To be continued…**_


	6. The Handless Maiden

_**Breaking News: **_Hello readers of The Tree of Knowledge. I'd like to thank all of you so much for making it this far if you are still with me, it's a very quiet story thus far, very internal, with long chapters, so it certainly takes patience to spend time with, but it seems I've got open-minded subscribers/ reviewers/ favoriters! I have read some beautiful and moving reviews and even made some friends along the way, and I hope that you all know how you have helped me, down to even previewing chapters for me. Now considering all of this, it is difficult for me to explain what comes next, but this story is going to be placed on PROBATION, and any writing on it is at least temporarily at a stop. I'd love to eat, breathe and dream this story, I'm personally fond of the protagonist, however I get in trouble when I have to juggle too many projects at once; I have projects with multiple friend scheduled to begin soon, one of them we're co-writing. I also have some ideas for more fanfics of my own outside the world of Harry Potter that finally need some addressing, and some original to fo. Again, I think its definitely been worthwhile writing this but it might be my most time-consuming story, Miss Nagini has such a classical way of putting things. Since there were no reviews for the last chapter that seems a sign it can take it rest, that traffic will be minimal. I'll leave with this chapter.

I am not dropping everything that I am doing. I will be keeping some stories afloat, and if you want this story ***CAN*** be one of them, I leave this totally in the hands of the readers. I'm guessing that many readers are very busy right now, or perhaps they've moved on, so that is why I think it's a good time to turn off this story, resurrect it if people get ready to read again. But if you would in fact like me to keep working on the Tree of Knowledge I will take that into consideration. If you're ready all you gotta do is review, show me your interest, what you like or what you think can be better etc. I know sometimes people don't feel like saying much, but if you don't say anything at all I have no way of knowing what it is that you're thinking, whether you want anymore or not. I just see story hits... I can't distinguish between who reads a chapter and chugs it and ain't coming back, and who would like to see it more developed. The story's going to sleep until somebody wants to wake it up.

Always available by PM,

Until then sweet dreams,

-Lucius Belyakov

* * *

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"Scrape your knee; it is only skin,

makes the sound of violins.

When you cut my hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings,

I am the happiest woman among all women."

-Joanna Newsom

The vortex had taken everything but the rat and myself. Tom had fled for his life I feared.

An object raised from the sands struck against me, it nearly punctured my heart by the manner it was shoved into me. I had heard of the twisted winds, they had the power to make all animals winged, carrying them through the skies. The "Angel-Maker" is what I called it, the legend. They also reduced castles to spare bricks, and they made sky earth and earth sky, drilling down into the grounds, taking trees out of their rooted place and hanging them in the clouds for stars.

I was held down, Rat honestly thought he could keep me from flying away. Am I as pitiful as a leaf in your hand, one you cam clutch and keep safe? I could not pity such a fool. Had I been less defeated by the loss of my hands I would have told him all about the power of the storms that traveled like this, and the stories I heard of them, and why he should let me go, for he could not hold me any more than he could hold back the sands being taken.

The sands meanwhile pecked at my eyes, they might as well have been birds. I died as good as blind. Because it pinched me when I opened those eyes I never saw exactly what these enchanted winds looked like. But I heard their sound clear enough; a horn being blown, or near about. I had only known wind to make whistle sounds before that day, but this was a roll of many airs, the bell of warning it seemed as this was the king and queen of the storm kingdom.

The weight on top of my heart would not move from me, if I had known no better I would have thought that Rat was helping it to be bound on top of me, even that he had gone and put it there. I died trying to breathe with the sharp and heavy cold crushing the place where my heart lay, pressing out the rest of the life. I did not even know what it was that was killing me, I could not open my eyes. That was rare, to die for so long and not see what your death was, what form it took.

I slowly opened my eyes, scratched with sand, but only saw the gold around us rising up. I remember wrapping my arms around whatever the weight fallen onto me was, trying to reject it and take it off of my breasts. It was made of a thin metal. It was doubtlessly worn out gold, even if in a puddle of my own blood I would not loose my ability to weigh one stone against another.

The block folded in my arms was engraved with an etching, I felt whatever was inscribed there sink into my skin, forcing pictures or written speech into the flesh. The exact shapes of what touched me was smeared, sands began covering it and horsewhipping my arms with their wildfire. I have been embraced by men in armor, feeling their war-smeared silver and brass, crests of their families, this is how it felt, the force of their touch.

I felt myself being buried under the sand.

_Bye Tom._

The burrying sand hid my arms and devoured stomach. I could not hear Rat; he must have already been underground, poor thing. He was so short he would have gone quickly. But it was terribly good to have a fast death on another's hand.

The grains hid the jewels at my neck and I laughed a little, I was growing mad in my old age I think. Then it was my realization that our winds were no longer twisting, the sands no longer flying. It stopped the split second I laid my arms across that metal to move it. Everything stayed an all quiet.

I felt a hand next, two of them, pulling what would have been _my _hands into the air by my open wrists. I opened a squinted eye, looking past the broken glass of sand that had been keeping them closed, to find little rat placing my useless limbs on top of the cup of the magic.

_Its good to see you after all._

I laughed some more to myself.

My invisible hands were crumpled and woven into themselves by the metal walls. The sand sticking to my skin fell down, tinkling into the cup, making sounds of money. Had I fingers I would have touched the golden bell center of it, and covered them with some sand. My fingernails would have made clicks against the cold shape. But as this was not possible for me, instead my dripping arms filled it with my own blood, I would never be the one to fill this cup with a drink that was not tears.

_Why are you mocking me? Why would you put my "hands" down there?_

"Where's Tom?" I coughed out, a mouth of fairy dust rolling down my chin. O, what a child I was again, barely able to eat right.

As he ignored my question I remembered that he did not know who Tom Riddle of Wool's Orphanage England was, not unless I told him. The name he would know him by was that Voldemort name. But that I was not going to say in that moment.

Who was this Voldemort? What had he done for me, so that I should speak of his name with some curiosity? Set him above Tom? It was not anybody with a name like Voldemort who carried me cold out of the Chamber With the Secrets. Tom carried me away from down there! He also was Tom when I took him to where there were no people, and there taught him how to conjure Fire of the Fiend, or so it is called in his tongue I think. How his eyes went wild; he was young to know it. I made him strong.

He was still Tom Riddle when I came to Wool's and slept under his bed without telling him, and nobody dared disturb our sweet dreams for fear of what was up under his bed.

He had not changed from Tom either when he brought me to his hiding room, there on the isle where he learned his magic upon. There was a spell on it so that no one could ever enter it but him, he impressed me by with that bit of magic. He said that the room would not be visible to me without his presence. I tested the strength of his spell and he had laid it without mistake; all I saw was a castle's wall when I stood there alone.

When I went in with him I found that we were together in a curious place, it had many things he said he had collected. It is difficult for me to believe he was telling me the truth about this because there were simply too many things. He had only been alive for sixteen or seventeen years, these were obviously lifetimes of objects. Not many Naga would have a horde that plentiful. It was not only a lot, but the styles contradicted each other, when you collect things there are certain things that you like, but this room seemed to be put together with the tastes of entirely different people depending on which object you looked at. I cannot tell you what the objects were because I was taken with only one. He presented me with a circlet, a silver one with a veil of sapphires and diamonds falling down from the edges, Cornish pixie wings braided about it. Usually I preferred gold, but this was nice.

It all sat upon the bust of a goblin with a very high collar and a carven pearl necklace. He took off the jewels and let me put them in my hair, in which they were better for than her curls of stone I think. He watched me while I dressed with the jewels. So awkward, so like a child he was, watching me as I looked at myself in the mirror. He said that one day he would gift them me, once trouble was gone from the world, by that he meant after he had declared war and won it, how naïve. But he said they must remain safe here for now.

Rat grabbed the open mouths to my wrists. Parts of my bones had gone missing, they lay with my stolen hands. When he touched the wrists they were so pliable, the skin was nearly empty. He went and squeezed them in his clumsiness till my blood was water being poured. He made me scream through that harsh touch that he would not stop, interrupting my many good memories.

In that moment of pain I decided that I would ease it by dying on a full stomach. What could be a better way to go then with a live squealing rat in your mouth?

I began to scream false squeals of sorrow so that I could open my mouth wider and wider without drawing much attention. I had to take my jaws off of their tracks and loosen them up. My mouth had to open up to the maximum degree possible so that I could digest his squishy stomach.

There are teeth I hide when in my sorceress' form, teeth that if ever found might reveal me to be a greater carnivore than a man. I had three sets of them deep inside me, but they would retract into the red roof of my mouth when they were inconvenient. It was past their time to come out of hiding I decided. I would come to terms with my last day of life by being bold about what I was.

When I thought of this as the last day I was just slightly hurt, knowing that I would never be in the same place as the human boy with whom I had known such "life" from. I had begun a process that he would again know life through. He would walk, and hunt and live. In short, enjoy his life. But by ensuring this I separated us again. I did not begrudge him his life at all, (with a passion,) but still I thought we would spend some time together.

Anger about that began to fill me up. I concentrated on the taste of my rat, it would be better that way.

I could not feel the strength in me to squeeze him. I do not think that I could even have changed my shape enough to try it anymore, to strangle a man with just my moving body. But this was no real problem, I looked at his neck and below and above, noticing his subclavian arteries, the carotid, his jugular vein all there, just inches from my faces. I knew where to put my teeth. I felt my tongue wet itself from hunger, just waiting for him to stick his face around.

I smiled at him and tried to wear the face of love itself while he took my arms that cried out, and put each of them through either handle of the great cup. I know that I had a pained face; no matter how I smiled and smiled it was a hard and heavy thing on my face.

I watched my arms slump over around the cup, how he made me resemble a marionette puppet as he tried to keep my arms around the cup. I suppose he expected me to hold the cup up at him somehow and offer him a drink. Very funny, I have no hands, oaf! I could have tossed the cup at his balding head for that.

I abandoned my earlier plans. I grabbed him by that neck of his with what limbs I had left, and I put him in a headlock with my elbows and arms just so I could have the pleasure of choking him to death. He was not going to die as fast as with one bite, O no he would not, I wanted him to suffer at least half of the troubles I did.

He mouthed and he caterwauled, kicked and he cried, gasped for his breath and flailed his arms. He might as well have worn a manacle, for he would get nowhere in my arms.

I began to become interested in my own strength. How did I still have the ability for this? When I lunged at him it was with anger at my suffering, I did not expect that anything should come of it, not really. I let go of the shaking rat, I should never have given him such significance.

I looked at my hands, or my arms rather. The blood upon them was gone, wiped down, no red anymore. No part of me hurt. The bad part of my skin had been burnt away, but the wrists were burnt in a manner that stopped all blood loss and should not let an infection come in. They had been cleansed with fires, a painless one.

"I did that!" I saved your life,"

That was rat howling from a far off distance.

I kept my gaze on my arms. I heard him talking to me, and I knew then, as I know today, the meaning of the words, but I could not arrange them in my mind enough to gather their meaning right then, that is how great my amazement was.

I nodded my head, but did not turn it to meet him, I looked only at those arms.

"Go on," I said to my wrists. I knew that he had said something good though.

"That cup has the power to heal, one of its many talents! The Dark Lord wants me alive you see! He told me how to save you. I know more… I can, I can,"

He went about working himself up and playing a beggar and a stammerer, never finishing the last word. Sentences that had no finish annoyed me greatly. Why was it so hard to say another word?

I came over there, I could be fast if it was what I wanted to be. I was there before he could run, just afloating in front of him, my feet never touching the grounds, but I had more patience than even I expected once I got to him. I touched his frightened face with my arm, an arm with much of its contents pulled out from it and blown to the winds. I was a lower creature now. I was not to be set above him. The helpless ones, field mice and little birds, others who are bigger and of greater strength tear them apart, just as my arms had been torn. Their entrails are also strewn everywhere, just like some miserable demon was probably running around with my hands in their mouth. The bodies of prey are docile, vacant, they are just clothes. What was I but a walking dress now?

I touched his cheek and his mouth to bid him find some courage, for your own sake too! But this was painful to me, though there was no pain. My wrists were threadbare. Old dead parts of it hung down from my skin just waiting to be pulled away. Strings of the flesh moved some when a breeze came through. Blades of grass that buckled, bull rushes that buckled under the wind, that is all that was left to me.

The rat was I think better contented when I took care with his face. He began to look at me as those of my breed and his fellow humans did as well, a look that I would receive from either sex, one that was repulsive. I knew touch would soon follow if I said nothing. All creatures of the earth that could stand up on two legs, from wizard to werewolf, have tried so many times to mount me, and ride me in a mare's place. That was a good reason for enjoying the life of the recluse, to be away from cruel people. That is why I shared a portion of my life with Tom though. Was he like this? Never.

I nodded my head about while I held his face, trying to keep him in focus, a not let him pay any physical thing about me any attention. I said to him, "Yes, tell me about your Lord, of what you know. Tell me, what did he tell you?

"Are you part Veela lady?"

I was too shocked to get out even a syllable. I only breathed a little harder, he knew I was not a Veela.

"I'll find your hands for you milady!"

_What? _With those words he disappeared right in front of me, before I could say a thing. He began running from me.

"No please Mister Rat!"

I reached after him and tried to follow, but as I went the sky itself opened! The air beyond my grasp was cut in half, and a black space flowered in the light. Dust particles spilled out of the stab wound in the sky. I dared not touch them!

As I stared at the monstrous marvel, the hole in the middle of the air, a noise was being made. Shrill noise, the tip of a bullwhip hitting its target or the gunshot's flame, something that went like that, a CRACK!

I looked all around for it, turning my face into the biggest snake that I could think of, a green-bodied anaconda; we would need defending! I opened my pink mouth and tried to look threatening, somebody that I could not see was watching me. Maybe they were up above us, toying with their little magic tricks?

I lost my hair, it would only be in my way. I kept the boa constrictor's head and long neck atop my woman's shoulders and the neckline of my dress. But I let my eyes be something else, that of another. I changed the color and type, making them pale and like a moon. What I had turned them to were the eyes of a brown tree snake. The head I selected so that I could be brutal easily enough, the eyes I made so that I could see better, I did not know where my danger was. Next I closed my eyes and counted to 10, altering the quality of my venom. I filled my fangs with the Fierce snake's poison, so that my bite would be fatal, if the Cosmic Serpent was willing.

By the time I had made myself a decent enough chimera Rat was gone. I stared around the plane view and found only common dust, nothing magical about it, blowing across the ground by a little wind.

I stood in the middle of the foreign land with my impressive snake head and mouth full of bile, all alone it seemed. I listened with my body for a sound to tell me that I was not, but heard only the wind that touched me.

Where was Rat? It was as though he had vanished where he stood, but of course a human does not have that power. Only a Naga may do so. If you wish to travel you go get your skin. You picture clearly in your mind where you want to be, then you walk right through it, that skin is as good as a doorway. You pass behind the veil of skin and you are in the room of wherever you wished you were, safely and so very secure.

I saw no torn fabric, nor beaten flesh. There were no footprints, not even a little blood. Hair was not left behind, not the sweat of fear or missing skin, a punched out tooth; there was no evidence of a murder, and certainly no sound, (every act leaves a sound behind for awhile,) or smell of it hanging in the atmosphere.

What it looked like was that he had been abducted. But why? Who would want him? Not even much like that did it look. Where was a sign of a struggle taking place?

I called his name, "Rat?"

I put my hands over my mouth so that my call could go farther. (Yes, the hands I lost, for I could find no other way to speak of them.)

I could not hear anything, just my empty sound knocking against the world outside, just the touch of my own voice dancing in the organ at the back of my throat.

* * *

><p>I walked without any idea of where the sands would lead me to. Perhaps off of a cliff?<p>

I play jokes upon you of course, that should not happen. Unless I had gone totally mad I should smell the rocks of such a place, I was not that crazed just yet.

I smelt the full moon mostly. I would tell you what a good moon smells like, but as I understand it the humans use a more general sense of smell. The things I would compare it to do not give off a strong perfume under their noses. A pearl maybe, a cloud? The only things one may be able to perceive that bears a similar aroma are desert flowers, just as they open on the cactus in the dark.

All I had learned by the grace of some sobriety was that I was not among the sands of the dessert, but thankfully instead I was on beach sands, which meant I should be alive by the time the sands had reached their end. I could hear a tide coming in, but I was quite far from it. I should have long ago recognized the texture of the ground, that the sands were deep and not hard.

The smell of beach salts were so repugnant that they covered most of the scents I found. I would have had to have stopped and spent time at different parts of the area to really know its body. But underneath all of that I smelled dolphins, some mermaids and a whale that had all been washed up and close to death miles away in the sand. Had I been already there I may have stopped to roll one of them back into the water, but it was too out of my way, I was supposed to be looking for Rat. I felt the sorriest to know of the whale's sufferings, the dolphins were dead and out of pain, but not the whale, and nobody else did I think would be able to move him. The mermaid was alive too, but she could survive like that on the sands. She might be captured, and what they would do is sell a music box that they transfigured her throat into, one you put underwater to play, a simple kitchen sink would suffice. Though this was not a life, up until the time which that process took place she was bought time, time to escape somehow. But I saw no escape for the whale, I smelt no humans for miles. His best luck was that they would kill him to eat him for a meal. It takes a long time to die.

I had no idea of how to find Rat. I only guessed, since this was the direction he was standing in before he disappeared without leaving me any way to find him. He was not even so good to have left his scent behind on something. There was no trail I could follow. Had he not stopped my bleeding, I would not be here trying to protect him, instead I would have gone back home, taking with me what was left of Tom. This was trouble.

What is the saying, "speak of the devil?" I struggled carrying Tom's idiot cup in my arms, that and my skin that had his ashes sewn inside. I could not carry these things properly when I had hands, you can only imagine how I did with them without someone to offer me assistance. It is all for you Tom, my hands are gone on your behalf. It is lucky you are revived Tom, for I would not do this again had I known what price I would pay for your freedom. But I would probably speak differently in the morning again, I was in poor spirits. I accept a lot, that is my fault, I hear it at all times. _Always understanding_, that was my runt's name, the translation of it from a parselmouth's throat.

At one point I sat the cup down and put my wrists against it, wishing for it to grow me new hands, just like it had stopped my blood. It could have been a blessed, wishing cup. I did not believe that healing was the only power invested in it, so I tried to see what its other powers might be.

_What is so special about you?_

There are many healing devices in the world; break a phoenix's bones until you get enough pearly tears out of him to save yourself with. There is a legend of a philosopher's stone that has traveled all throughout Europe, a blessed one that you can lie upon and get many things from, you can also squeeze blood from the stone. I have heard of apple orchards of Greek lands, with fruit trees bearing them in every color, golden apples that will remind you of a sunshine, pieces green as an emerald, red as the remains of kill, soft browns like the woods of your adored sheltering trees, just one tiny bite would bring you a longer life.

There are plenty of old magic rituals too, where the sorcerer puts his soul in an object and…

_Tom, you crazy child! You did not do that…_

I put my handless arm over my mouth as I thought about it.

So that is how you did it? That is how a poor mortal survived in a house that was ripped to bits. A house that killed everyone else, save the child with the green eyes, asleep and put away in his child house. Your own body was burnt down to nothing, yet there are clues of you still here for us to follow. This was so because you weighted your spirit down with this cup, so no matter what happens it can go nowhere, it acts as anchor for you… unless of course something should happen to the cup. (Though Stranger I have told you the term before, just for making sense of my story, I knew this not before now. This is the point I called it "horcrux" in my mind.)

It is advanced ceremonial magic, I myself could not have orchestrated it. What have you done Tom, brilliant and sneaky child? You revive a magic that has been left in the dark for centuries, and keep your secret from the one who gives so much to you. Yet you turn and are bold enough to trick me into guarding it for you after that! I will chew on your ear with my teeth when you are returned to your proper form, give you a permanent tattoo right there. Or I will slip some of my venom into some drink of yours, and give you a stomachache, I do not think a horcrux will protect you from that. After all, its only a horcrux, not snake skin.

He envied my ability to live forever you know. He might have tried to steal my skin if he knew how exactly I lived. He questioned me several times about the fairy story of the healing skin, and I told him that is what it was, a fairy tale. I ridiculed him with my laugh and watched his face red up.

He was not prone to live in fantasies as they say, so that was not so hard for him to believe. My trick was nothing personal, but no Naga would talk with anyone besides another Naga about it. I did not think he was more likely to steal from me than anyone else was like to. But who wants death? I would take it from him I think if he had the skin, and I was the human.

Anyway, he was very competitive about outliving me somehow. I am surprised he was able to remain contained about his clever, ambitious scheming. I remember when he was small, he would always run to me and tell me what new piece of magic he had picked up. I would indulge him even when the spell was not important.

I laughed as I thought of him then. I had changed my head back from a serpent's to a woman one several hours passed, when the sun was setting and the moon only dawning. I was too miserable to go through the effort of taking the head and neck off for a long time. In fact, I do not think I actively performed the change, it just washed over me as I walked. I probably passed one tree and had a snake head and the body of a maid, and when I passed another I was womanly all.

My feet bled and stung me hornets worth, my shoes had come apart. They were silk and diamonds, so they would. They probably were making a diamond trail to lead straight to me, but I cared nothing about it.

I had walked on my feet until they were balls. The diamonds turned red as they pressed against my abused feet, and the footprints I left behind were also colorful. I was too tired to care for that.

I visited a land where magic ran wild once, where there were so many dragons. Many animals talked to humans there, not just the dragons or myself, speaking monkeys, mare, oxen hooked to the cart, piggies, sheep flocks, hares, tigers, cocks, hounds, and rats too, Tom's servant would love it there. They had a whole year devoted to the worship of the snake, like I have not seen since the glory of Babylon. It was protected by a great wall that I would have trouble getting up. But why I tell this story is because the law of this land was that the women must tie up their feet from the time they were little girls until they changed their shape. Flower feet, they called them. My feet looked something like what they aspired to, lotuses of the gold. They healed themselves quickly. I would get little fresh feet, no different than a child's, perfect and warm with color. But they would fall apart again soon enough, I was wearing my human form into the ground. I would have turned myself into a snake and slid my way there had the Rat not needed me, that form was comfortable, but it would slow me down. I move quicker when I am Nagini the woman.

I came to a forest soon. I supposed I had no choice but to enter and look for him.

There was a white sign of wood nailed to one of the trees, painted with red hieroglyphics.

The characters took these shapes: ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

I could not read the written word, not in the tongues of Europe. So I walked inside unprepared for all that was to come…

_To be continued…_


End file.
